I remember the adds for tbis printer in Byte, Popular Electronics, and Radio Electronics. I had the SWT catalog back then. That was a lot of money for a 13 year old.
Pretty awesome of how a simple system can have upgrades for simple solutions. I wonder witch upgrades could ever be done solely on software assembly, without even expanding with memory or other EPROMs for basic for example. Kudos for this🎉!
Very cool! Thanks for sharing. My father built a computer back in the 1970’s that used this printer. I remember him pointing out the helical cam to me as a clever mechanism for the job. I also appreciated the forward/reverse lever on the ribbon advance mechanism. Pretty cool stuff for the times. I really enjoyed watching you bring it back to life once more.
Your use of the word "helical" here sent me down a rabbit hole. I hadn't been sure how to describe this track, but I think helical is correct since it causes the carriage to trace out a straight line. Thanks! and glad you enjoyed
What a nifty little combination! I remember, as a child of the 80's and 90's, when a printer was considered an absolutely essential peripheral for any computer, and it's fascinating to see such an early (home) printer demonstrated with period hardware.
Memories. That was my first printer, bought as a kit in late 1977 or early 1978 , assembled and installed (with a lot of fiddling) on my TRS-80. Definitely not high class, but a $1000+ dot matrix, or an even pricier daisywheel was the only thing else out there. The thing did work rather well, once the data timing was tweaked a bit. SWTPC for the win! Do remember that sound.. Thanks for the memories! Stu
Hey, I still have my PR 40. I drove it from a home built S100 6800 system. As you mentioned, it was great for printing BASIC listings. My system was also interfaced to a Southwest Technical Cassette Storage System for saving the BASIC programs. It sorta worked occasionally 😤. I built a TV based display monitor from an article in an early BYTE magazine. It was great! Ultimately I interfaced the system to a Teletype ASR 35. It was much easier to talk to than the P40. Anyway, thanks for the memories. 😂
Printer + TV typewriter was a whole lot of DIY, that was a real moment in time. If you feel like working something out for a good new home for your PR40 please do drop me a note! (bzotto at gmail), the one in the video is a loaner. In any case thanks for watching and sharing the memory!
@@bzotto At this point it’s not in the best of condition. But if I decide to let go of one of my dear memories, I will certainly let you know. Frankly, it would be in a better place than just on the shelf, collecting dust.
Side-stepping SWTP's ASCII-to-dots translation would be interesting. If we could control the dot-matrix directly, we'd have high-ish resolution graphics in 1975!!!!
The dream!! In practice you can’t prevent the line breaks- the rotation of the platen is part of the carriage mechanism. But you could still have strips of 240x7 or so horizontal bitmaps :)
The descendant company, "Pertech" of LRC that made the 7040 printer in the 1970's is still in business in Riverton Wyoming making ticket and custom printers. I worked as an computer engineer for LRC in the 1980-82 and still have a few parts from these printers.
I remember the adds for tbis printer in Byte, Popular Electronics, and Radio Electronics. I had the SWT catalog back then. That was a lot of money for a 13 year old.
Pretty awesome of how a simple system can have upgrades for simple solutions. I wonder witch upgrades could ever be done solely on software assembly, without even expanding with memory or other EPROMs for basic for example. Kudos for this🎉!
Very cool! Thanks for sharing. My father built a computer back in the 1970’s that used this printer. I remember him pointing out the helical cam to me as a clever mechanism for the job. I also appreciated the forward/reverse lever on the ribbon advance mechanism. Pretty cool stuff for the times. I really enjoyed watching you bring it back to life once more.
Your use of the word "helical" here sent me down a rabbit hole. I hadn't been sure how to describe this track, but I think helical is correct since it causes the carriage to trace out a straight line. Thanks! and glad you enjoyed
What a nifty little combination! I remember, as a child of the 80's and 90's, when a printer was considered an absolutely essential peripheral for any computer, and it's fascinating to see such an early (home) printer demonstrated with period hardware.
yup now i rarely use a printer but back then you needed more stuff on paper in general .since computers weren't everywhere and there was no internet .
Memories. That was my first printer, bought as a kit in late 1977 or early 1978 , assembled and installed (with a lot of fiddling) on my TRS-80. Definitely not high class, but a $1000+ dot matrix, or an even pricier daisywheel was the only thing else out there. The thing did work rather well, once the data timing was tweaked a bit. SWTPC for the win! Do remember that sound.. Thanks for the memories! Stu
I love the SWTPC aesthetic so much.
Sphere Daddy!
Haha ahoy VCF neighbor!
When I see Ben Z in my notifications. I know the video slaps.
Oh yeah. Sphere time.
i never thought i'd miss the sound of a dot matrix printer but here we are
That is a very simple cam motion. Awesome.
Hey, I still have my PR 40. I drove it from a home built S100 6800 system. As you mentioned, it was great for printing BASIC listings. My system was also interfaced to a Southwest Technical Cassette Storage System for saving the BASIC programs. It sorta worked occasionally 😤. I built a TV based display monitor from an article in an early BYTE magazine. It was great! Ultimately I interfaced the system to a Teletype ASR 35. It was much easier to talk to than the P40. Anyway, thanks for the memories. 😂
Printer + TV typewriter was a whole lot of DIY, that was a real moment in time. If you feel like working something out for a good new home for your PR40 please do drop me a note! (bzotto at gmail), the one in the video is a loaner. In any case thanks for watching and sharing the memory!
@@bzotto At this point it’s not in the best of condition. But if I decide to let go of one of my dear memories, I will certainly let you know. Frankly, it would be in a better place than just on the shelf, collecting dust.
@@philipershler420 Thanks for the reply-- fair enough and inbox is always open. ;) Meanwhile stay tuned for more stuff of the era...
@@bzotto 4:22
This channel has such a chill vibe - subbed!
Thanks! I credit the music for the the vibe. (The content is secretly uncut nerd!)
I'm a simple man. I see Ben Z, I click.
13:35 This is better than the current iteration of Notepad tbh. 😂
We stand on the shoulders of giants (Notepad)! Bless up
Love the video thanks
seems a good idea for an arduino playground. is graphics supported?
Unfortunately no, the printer has a character generator ROM onboard and just turns buffered ASCII characters into dot patterns.
Side-stepping SWTP's ASCII-to-dots translation would be interesting. If we could control the dot-matrix directly, we'd have high-ish resolution graphics in 1975!!!!
The dream!! In practice you can’t prevent the line breaks- the rotation of the platen is part of the carriage mechanism. But you could still have strips of 240x7 or so horizontal bitmaps :)
The descendant company, "Pertech" of LRC that made the 7040 printer in the 1970's is still in business in Riverton Wyoming making ticket and custom printers. I worked as an computer engineer for LRC in the 1980-82 and still have a few parts from these printers.
No way! That's so cool. Thanks for sharing the connection.
Sphere is so back
It is so back.
Oodles of really great information here. The information around the Sphere is growing daily! Be great to see a Sphere Printer someday !